


The Art of War

by draculard



Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Art, But like in a lighthearted fun way, Crack, Gen, Humor, Slice of Life, battle tactics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26298676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: Or perhaps, Faro thought as she studied the battle schematic, that phrase should be rearranged a little."The Stick Figures of War" sounded pretty accurate right now.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 45





	The Art of War

The holoboard was thrumming with energy — or maybe that was just the tension in the war room, Faro thought. She and Vanto sat side by side with the rest of the bridge crew around them, all officers watching Thrawn’s back shift beneath his tunic as he drew the battle schematic for them at the front of the room.

His light pen whirred over the board, drawing solid and dotted lines from one ship to the next as he explained his plan in a low murmur.

“—from there,” he said, sketching a vector from one end of the holoboard to the next, “the Judicator will provide a shadow for the light cruiser, which will detach _here…_ ” He tapped his pen briskly against the board, leaving a dot at the detachment point. “...and match to the speed of the asteroid with a finely-timed puff of exhaust, effectively hiding the ship from the enemy’s view as the Judicator adjusts course — so — as a distraction.”

He sketched out the Judicator’s course adjustments with a few brisk twists of the wrist and then turned to face them, the light pen still activated, his eyebrows raised. Behind him, the battle schematic glowed and pulsed on the board.

“Questions?” he asked.

Faro and Vanto shared a glance. She shook her head in silent warning. He bit his lip.

“Sir?” he asked, raising his hand. Thrawn nodded at him and Vanto pointed at once to an amorphous blob in the northwest corner of the schematic. “What is that supposed to be?”

Thrawn turned his head, checking his own sketch. His eyes shifted upward toward the blob. “That’s the Chimaera,” he said.

There was a beat of silence. A few of the officers shifted in their seats.

“That’s the _Chimaera_?” Vanto said.

Thrawn didn’t answer. He only looked at Vanto with one eyebrow raised, as if the question didn’t deserve a response. His light pen was still uncapped, threatening further drawings.

“Sir, the Chimaera’s shaped like a _wedge_ ,” Faro put forth, keeping her tone politely informative as she formed the shape of a Star Destroyer with her hands. “Like so.” 

“Yes, well, it’s a bit difficult to draw a three-dimensional wedge on a two-dimensional plane,” said Thrawn dryly, indicating the holoboard.

“You can draw a triangle, can’t you?” said Hammerly. Thrawn turned to face her with a twitch of the lips.

“That _is_ a triangle,” he said, tapping the Chimaera.

“Triangles have _corners_ , sir,” said Faro, her voice strained. “That thing doesn’t have corners, it has soft edges. What you’ve drawn is a blob.”

Thrawn glanced back at the blob-shaped Chimaera for a moment, his face unreadable, and then turned back to the crew. “Any questions about the _tactics_?” he asked.

The officers shifted again, but Pyrondi raised her hand. Thrawn pointed his light pen at her and nodded.

“Which squiggle is supposed to be the Judicator and which is the light cruiser, sir?” she asked.

“Judicator,” said Thrawn, pointing to a square-ish speck on the holoboard a bit sharply. Then, moving his light pen to a star-shaped scribble, he said, “Light cruiser. Is that clear?”

There was a strained silence throughout the conference room.

“And the asteroids are…?” said Hammerly.

Without any sort of verbal response, Thrawn turned back to the holoboard and drew a broad circle near the light cruiser. With rapid-fire stabs of the light pen, he sketched in one dot after the next and then wrote ASTEROIDS in all capital letters amongst them.

Faro and Vanto looked at each other again. Shifting closer, Vanto leaned over to her and whispered, “Look, I never said he _himself_ was a good artist. I just said he _likes_ _art_.”

Thrawn clicked the lid of the light pen into place with a pointed snap. “Forgive me for not taking the time to sketch out a photo-realistic battle scene,” he said, his voice dangerously tone-free. “Next time I will make sure to remember my paints.”

“He doesn’t have any paints,” Vanto whispered to Faro. “He doesn’t even have _markers_.”

Studying the holoboard and its ghastly, almost incomprehensible schematic, Faro grimaced.

“I could tell,” she said. Thrawn turned a wrathful glare on her, but before she could muster an apology (or suffer a rebuke), Pyrondi spoke up again.

“Sir, are we the X’s or are we the O’s?”

Thrawn opened his mouth, then closed it and turned to look at the schematic again. “X’s?” he said, scanning his own artwork in search of a single X. His eyes skipped right over a few inscrutable symbols that Faro had rather optimistically assumed were representative of Imperials vs. Rebels. “There are no X’s and O’s,” said Thrawn. “Where are you seeing X’s and O’s?” Indicating a few nebulous shapes spread throughout the schematic, he said, “The Imperial ships are the Star Destroyers, light cruisers, and TIE fighters, and the Rebel ships are drawn as Y-wings and X-wings. You can’t tell?”

Collectively, the whole room grimaced. Faro studied the shapes on the holoboard for a moment and for the life of her couldn’t tell that any of them were meant to be ships.

“Look,” said Thrawn, putting one hand over the light pen’s cap as if to physically stop himself from proving he could draw a Star Destroyer — or at least a triangle. “Does anyone have questions about the battle plan itself?”

Nobody raised their hands. In the back row of officers, Faro could hear two people whispering to each other, but couldn’t quite make out the words.

“Aren’t you an art history major, sir?” asked Skerris suddenly, perhaps unwisely. Thrawn’s hand tightened on the light pen again.

“Art history, yes,” he said, his voice a master-class in menacing calm. “Not art itself. Does anyone here have a problem with that?”

Leaning so close to Vanto that her lips almost touched his ear, Faro whispered, “You’d think an art history major could at least draw a little.” Then, as Vanto struggled to suppress a laugh, she raised her voice so Thrawn could definitely hear her. “ _I_ think it looks great, Vanto. Very … serviceable.”

It was possible Thrawn’s eyebrow twitched at the word _serviceable_ , but what else could Faro say? 

The Chimaera didn’t even have _corners_. 


End file.
